The Prestidigitator

Disclaimer: FICTION! 

I walked out for a cup of coffee. Honestly, I’ve never felt the effects of caffeine but I was sickeningly addicted to it. Maybe that was the effect. Addiction.  I guess I took it because it was the only drug that was both legal and affordable. I waited for the last drip to make it’s way out of the machine and then for a second to make sure that I didn’t miss a drop. Java in hand, I walked to the nearest window and slowly sipped it and waited for the bittersweet taste to register. It felt good.

An office on the 6th floor had given me the opportunity to be a silent onlooker onto the unsuspecting world below. I could go on and tell you that the little girl playing in the sand made me long for my own childhood or that the labourer toiling in the sun made me hate my easy life. I could tell you a lot of things that people would normally say…but then, I’d be lying.

I looked out the window and all I could see was the clear blue, cloudless sky and the multitude of buildings and not-so-building like structures fighting for space on the already crowded landscape. Billboards with scantily clad women and muscular men advertising things I didn’t care about caught my eye. Roads, if you could call them that, kept crisscrossing into each other and harboured countless souls on their way to God knows where. God knows where. God knows. God. Did God look down and see all this? All this chaos? Did He ever look down? It sure didn’t seem like He did. To me, everything out there looked so lifeless. It was like staring out the window to see a movie that didn’t have soul. A movie that inspired no emotions.

Nothing affected me anymore. Nothing. Not the coffee or the life outside. Things like love,  poverty, famine, heaven, hell and the likes didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was money. Money. And maybe happiness. Only if I knew what happiness was. I mean, I know when I’m happy. I laugh at a joke, I’m happy. I hear a peppy number, I’m happy. I’m out with my friends, I’m happy. I go back home, I’m happy. But how is being happy different from Happiness? Is happiness a state that lasts for a period of time or is it just something that’s as overrated as the movie that won some award?

I glanced sideways to see her standing beside me. Coffee cup in hand, there was a calmness and serenity on her face that I never saw when we were at work. She looked almost other wordly and I was actually taken back by how beautiful she looked when she wasn’t talking about ‘mitigating business factors’ or ‘deferring of ideas for evaluation’. At that  moment, she was another person. A person I could learn to like. Love even. She turned to face me.

“I really hate this place.”

“Oh.”

“I wish there was some higher meaning to all of this shit.”

“C’mon…”

“There has to be meaning right? There has to be! Or is everything so…so…so fucking random?”

“I like to think it is. I mean, c’mon it’s not like somebody’s gonna come and tell us that we were on Candid Camera or something.” She didn’t even smile.

“I need to get out of this…this cycle. Are you coming?”

“Um…where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

“Look…maybe we should get back to work.”

“Well, I’m going anyway. You can come if you want to.” With that, she climbed up the sill, slid back the giant window and jumped out.

Shit. What just happened? I craned my head forward to peer out the window, only to bang my head on the glass. It was closed. I heard a faint chuckle behind me.

It was her.

“I really hate this place.”

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one’s preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizzare which seems inherent in them.

               -Jean Cocteau, Les Enfants Terribles

As I’ve long suspected but seldom believed, most things (love, money, happiness, blah blah) in life are overrated but life itself seems criminally underrated.

The last few weeks, I’ve been in contemplative mode thanks to the huge amounts of time I’ve had to myself. I’ve *tried* to look at where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going from a wholly new (to me ) perspective.

If I died today, people would probably remember me as ‘that kid who could’ve been whatever he wanted to but never did anything‘. I desperately need to change that and yes, things have already been set into motion (insert ominous music here).

I’ve taken chances/choices that may make or break a lot of things in my life. The only consolation being that anything that’s broken can always be fixed. Plus there are a lot of firm decisions I have to make and more importantly, stick to.

The whole concept of ‘a job’ has always seemed absurd to me and I hated the fact people actually spend an amazingly huge time being somebody’s bi**h! Truth is EVERYBODY is SOMEBODY’s bi**h and this realisation has brought a lot more clarity into my present situation.

• I need to go out and meet/see more people/places.
• I need to detatch myself a bit more from my surroundings.
• I need to give everything I’ve got to ‘The Cause’.
• I need to assess where I am, wrt my faith/belief/philosophy.
• I need to tell a ‘few people’ a ‘few things’.

Right now, the sky is definetly blue!!!
Listening to Sooner or Later by Michael Tolcher

PS- This post couldn’t get any more vague could it?!

Great song, great band, amazing video!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usmv-WI3tj8]

Thanks bro!

This is something that has been on my mind for a few weeks now and I thought I really couldn’t put it in words so I didn’t bother to write. Truth is, I still doubt I’ll be able to write much.

It’s something we read in the papers every single day. Rape, dowry deaths, assault, forced prostitution etc…. but somehow, the gravity of the situation seldom strikes us. It never strikes us until our friends/family members are victims in some way or the other. I’ve been listening to a lot (a LOT) of stuff from some of my close friends from Chennai, Bangalore and even Hyderabad and it’s disturbing and sickening to see that women in our country  have to lead a restricted existense just because of some of the perverts that roam our/your streets.

Not surprisingly, it isn’t restricted to the middle and lower classes. And it isn’t even endemic to our country.

A  friend of mine, Selva has written a post titled, ‘Will my wife and daughters be safe in this world?’ It’s an amazingly well researched, thought out and written piece.

So what does the law do to the perpetrators of these heinous crimes? Will a jail term do? Will execution do? Will anything that is done repair the lives of the traumatised victims?

Christmas is almost here, so here goes!

Books:

• 1984 by George Orwell; The New Edition
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• Snapshots from Hell:The Making of an MBA.
• Losing my Virginity by Richard Branson
• The Watchmen by Alan Moore
• Annie Hall: The Screenplay by Woody Allen
  

DVDs:

• Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut

Gadgets:

• Nokia N73
• Panasoni GS 500
• Apple G4 iBook

Miscellaneous:

• Natalie Portman

More to come!

Disclaimer: The following rant has nothing to do with Adam Sandler. 

When I got into college, I thought that 4 years in a place like that would turn me into one of those intellectual slackers. The kind that you see in movies. The ones who have long hair, a perpetually unshaven look, smoke a LOT of weed and wax eloquently on topics ranging from philosophy to conspiracies. I wanted to be the guy who would laugh at the ones who wanted to get a job and get married and fall into routine. Deep down, I really wanted to be that guy.

Four years later,  I’ve realised that I have a receding hairline, it gets itchy when I don’t shave and I can’t be around smoke of any kind (cigarettes, fires and ancient smoke signals).

Here I am, actually worrying about things I thought I never would. There was a time when I used to be just plain confused.I miss being confused. I miss being able to look forward to things in life.

Where is my career going?Have I made the right decisions? Are the chances I’ve taken going to pay off? Will I be able to take that Post Grad course? Will the sequel to Batman Begins be as good?When will I get settled in life? Do I want to get settled in life? What the hell is ’settled’?

All that aside, I’m finally off Business Wait/Bench and into a unit that I think I may actually like.  Only time will tell.

Listening to  Prophecy by Remy Zero 

From the light on high,
a chance to change your fate.
Forgiveness falling down
on those who chose to wait. 

This is another one of those indie films I’m really looking forward to. Somehow, it reminds me of Lost in Transalation (a truly remarkable film) and Garden State (yes, Garden State ).

Anyhoo, this one won  Best Canadian Feature at The Vancouver Film Fest this year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu8Gtbljw4E]

As it is I’ve been sleep walking through most of my  life for the last week, so I thought I might as well post on Lucid Dreaming.

First off, Lucidity or Lucid Dreaming is NOT a pseudo science and it does not have anything to do with mysticism, black magic or religion. It’s classified under Science of the Mind (Oooooh!).

Lucid dreaming is the conscious perception of one’s state while dreaming, resulting in a much clearer (”lucid”) experience and sometimes enabling direct control over the content of the dream. The complete experience from start to finish is called a lucid dream. (Source: Wikipedia)

Alright, it does sound a little out there, but I assure you that it isn’t what with having been a prevelant topic of many books and films (notably Waking Life and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

Moreover I have had lucid dreams myself and vouch for the fact that it is extremely cool stuff. Imagine being able to control your dreams. Imagine being able to do whatever you wanted to do but can’t in real life. Imagine flying. Imagine jumping over tall buildings. Imagine going to the farthest reaches of space. Imagine scuba diving in the Pacific. The whole process is ONLY limited by one’s imagination. Now people may confuse this with Astral Projections and the likes, but Astral Projections in my opinion is …um…bullcrap!

So what does it take to be a Lucid Dreamer? Firstly, you must be a light sleeper and must have a good dream recall capability i.e. you must be able to remember your dreams to an extent. It helps to maintain a book where you can jot down your dreams. Caffeine and Chocolate help too. There are various ways to dream lucidly. Below are a few methods:

1. Reality Testing Method:As the name suggests, the Reality Testing Technique simply involves trying to determine whether you are awake or dreaming by examining the world around you to determine if it is real. There are essentially two components to this technique: being attentive to the world around you and watching for dream signs, and performing routine reality checks during the day. The idea is pretty simple: if you’re able to determine that something you’ve witnessed simply cannot be possible, then you are probably dreaming.  It does sound vague, I agree but sometimes it helps asking yourself if you’re dreaming when you are. If you do realise you are dreaming, you can control a part of what you see.
2. Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams (MILD):The mnemonic induction of lucid dreams is a common technique used to induce a lucid dream at will by setting an intention, while falling asleep, to remember to recognize that one is dreaming, or to remember to look for dream signs. Because it is easy to master (almost everyone sets intentions frequently), it is ideal for those who have never practiced lucid dreaming induction techniques before.

 There are some other methods too like WILD and WBTB and if you’re interested you may want to check out the following links.

http://www.dreamviews.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming

A particulary common Lucid Dream I TRY to have is that of flying and there are times where it has worked and believe me, the experience is exhilirating! My bro happens to be a sort of professional at it though and he’s had some pretty neat stories to tell. I started trying out this stuff when I was in my second year of college and it did take a lot of time to work but I was pretty adamant about it and finally was able to do it to an extent but I assure you I ain’t no expert. Watch the movie, Waking Life if you’re really interested.

I wonder if anyone out there has experienced Sleep Paralysis wherein your mind works but your body goes stiff. I have, and couple that with what scientists call Hypnagogic Hallucinations and you’ll see some pretty wierd stuff.

The above has also been posted on Scribez.

What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite easily be seen, that I, a rational being, must act in a case where my reason, my powers of reflection, tell me: you can just as well do the one thing as the other, that is to say where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act and yet here is where I have to act… The Absurd, or to act by virtue of the absurd, is to act upon faith … I must act, but reflection has closed the road so I take one of the possibilities and say: This is what I do, I cannot do otherwise because I am brought to a standstill by my powers of reflection.                                     –Søren Kierkegaard